News from BIOCOMES

20, 2016

The latest newsletter from BIOCOMES is now available, providing readers with updates on some of the 11 new biological control products the project is developing for a number of important pests and diseases in agriculture, horticulture and forestry.

One of the tasks of the BIOCOMES consortium, which comprises 13 industrial and 14 research partners across 14 countries, is to develop two biological control agents (BCAs) against brown rot (Monilinia
spp.) in stone fruit crops.

Both biocontrol agents, Penicillium frequentans
909 and Bacillus amyloliquefaciens
CPA-8, have been characterised under the main environmental conditions (temperature, water activity, pH, photoperiod, and light), with the results confirming that both BCAs have a very wide tolerance with regard to pH, temperature and water activity, and can survive under different light exposure conditions. This should enable the BCAs to establish themselves and survive under a wide range of environmental conditions.

Last year field trials were conducted, with the BCAs used alone or in combination. They were applied by calendar (four applications) or following a specially developed prediction model, with both BCAs proving to have good efficacy, comparable to chemicals under a standard level of Monilinia
spp. However, high disease pressure reduced their efficacy. In the coming season these results will be validated under commercial conditions in Italy, Belgium, France and Spain.

With regards to cabbage moth (Mamestra brassicae
), BIOCOMES reports that Telenomus
sp. has been found to efficiently parasitize eggs under both laboratory and field conditions. Researchers are currently collecting and describing Telenomus
sp. from a range of countries across Europe, using molecular and morphological tools to determine the insects at the species level.

Concerning potato moth and tomato leaf miner, researchers have focused on the biological and molecular characterisation of naturally occurring Phthorimaea operculella
granulovirus (PhopGV) virus isolates collected from Italy, Greece and the Canary Islands. BIOCOMES reports that different biological activities could be observed in bioassays, and there was also a genetic variation between collected PhopGV field isolates and isolates from project partners’ virus libraries.